By Helena Andrews-Dyer / The Washington Post
Soccer star Megan Rapinoe is quickly becoming a favorite pick in Fantasy Political Football — despite her own thoughts on the matter.
Presidential candidate Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Washington, made a whopper of a campaign promise on Saturday: If he makes it to the White House, he will ask the U.S. women’s national team co-captain to serve as the country’s secretary of state.
“My first act will be to ask Megan Rapinoe to be my secretary of state. I haven’t asked her yet so this could be a surprise to her,” Inslee said at the progressive Netroots Nation conference in Philadelphia. The governor explained that he wanted a secretary of state that leads with “love rather than hate.”
“I actually believe this because what I think what she has said that has inspired us so much is such an antithesis of the president’s foreign policies,” said Inslee, who isn’t the first politician to throw Rapinoe’s jersey in the political ring. When Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-California, dropped out of the 2020 presidential race last week, he joked that Rapinoe would have his support if she chose to run for the White House. “I think she turns 35 next July,” Swalwell quipped.
Rapinoe certainly fits that bill for some. She has publicly clashed with President Donald Trump, who she has said “excludes people who look like me and are me.” During her much-discussed speech at last week’s FIFA Women’s World Cup ticker tape parade in New York, Rapinoe challenged the assembled crowd to “be better.”
“We have to love more, hate less. We gotta listen more and talk less. We gotta know that this is everybody’s responsibility,” she said.
The speech, woven through with direct references to diversity and the fight for equal pay, would hardly be out of place on the campaign trail. Rapinoe also made her political ambitions clear – at least for now.
“There’s no other place that I would rather be – even in the presidential race,” Rapinoe said. “I’m busy, I’m sorry.”
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